Lullaby for a Stormy Night
by RaspieAspie
Summary: Spencer is afraid of thunder storms. Will the team be able to help him? Song lyrics belong to Vienna Teng, last stanza removed to avoid copyright issues.
1. Chapter 1

2/6/17

Criminal Minds

Lullaby for a Stormy Night

"C'mon guys, it's five o'clock, let's get out of here quick before Garcia springs another case on us!"

The members of the BAU team looked up from their respective desks and found Morgan already pulling on his black leather jacket.

JJ smiled, "Don't worry, Garcia won't be springing any cases tonight, she's with me. We're gonna try out that new Mexican restaurant down the street, you guys wanna come?"

"Sounds great, count me in," Emily said as she tucked her files away in her drawer.

"I could go for a decent taco, how 'bout you Pretty Boy?" Morgan looked in the direction of Reid's desk, but the resident genius seemed distracted.

Spencer was staring out the window across the bullpen as he fiddled nervously with the pen in his hand. Outside, rain poured in sheets, and the sky was dark with clouds.

"Reid!" Morgan called again.

Reid jumped, startled. "Sorry, what?" he asked.

Morgan chuckled, "The work day's over kid, you can power that giant brain of yours down for the evening. You wanna join us for Mexican?"

Reid bit his lip and shot another anxious glance out the window. "I-I don't think it's safe to be driving in this weather," he said, "22% of all car accidents are weather-related, and of those, 73% are caused by rain. Maybe we should wait here until it stops."

Morgan was about to protest, but Emily moved towards the window to get a better look.

"I think Reid might be right," she said, "it's pouring buckets out there. I'm sure it won't last long."

Suddenly a flash of lightning streaked across the sky, and the lights in the bullpen flickered slightly.

"Great, a power outage, that's just what we need," Morgan sighed.

The tail end of his sentence was lost as a huge clap of thunder exploded, rattling the windows. The lights flickered once more, then went out.

JJ sighed. "Okay guys, dig out your flashlights," she said. She reached into the desk drawer where she kept her gun, and pulled out the small LED flashlight that was part of the team's standard issue equipment.

Two more luminescent spots appeared as Emily and Morgan flicked their own lights on.

"Reid, where's your light?" Emily asked. She received no response, and shone her flashlight in the direction of Reid's desk. The genius was nowhere to be found, and his wheelie chair was spinning lazily on its axis.

"Reid?" Morgan asked anxiously. He approached his friend's desk, and as he did so, he heard a soft whimpering, just for a moment.

Slowly Morgan crouched down and shone his flashlight underneath the desk. There, huddled in the corner, was Reid. His knees were drawn up to his chest and his head was buried in them, his arms curled protectively over the back of his neck. He was shivering.

"Reid?" Morgan said softly, "Kid, what's wrong?" He searched his mind for everything he knew about his eccentric little brother, and landed on a conversation that he and Spencer had had a long time ago.

 _"_ _The only thing I was afraid of was the dark."_

 _"Some of us still are."_

"Is it the dark?" Morgan asked, "are you afraid because it's so dark?"

Reid shook his head, a tiny motion, almost imperceptible. He whispered something from within his self-imposed cocoon.

"What?" Morgan asked, "what'd you say?"

Reid lifted his head very slightly, keeping his gaze fixed on the floor. "Storm," he murmured hoarsely.

Emily, who had been standing next to Morgan, crouched down beside him, shining her light over Spencer's huddled form. "The storm? You're afraid of the thunder and lightning?" she asked gently.

Reid nodded once, and another flash lit up the sky. He flinched and covered his ears in anticipation of the booming thunder to follow, but when it came, he still jumped and whimpered like a frightened animal. The glow of the flashlights illuminated his tear-stained face.

JJ joined her friends on the floor and looked at Reid sadly. "It's okay Spence," she said softly, "let's go to the round-table room, it'll be quieter in there, we can close the blinds and you won't even know there's a storm outside."

Reid sat stiffly for a moment, but eventually he nodded and crawled out from under the desk. Morgan and Emily helped him to his feet, but Morgan didn't let go of his thin, shivering frame. His legs were shaking too badly to support him properly.

They were halfway across the bullpen when two more beams of light suddenly appeared on the catwalk above them.

"Prentiss, JJ, Morgan, what's going on? Is Reid all right?" Rossi looked down at the group from where he stood beside Hotch.

"We're taking him to the round-table room," Emily said, "the storm is scaring him."

Reid flinched with humiliation. Even in his half-petrified state, he was still embarrassed that Emily should be talking about him as if he were a child.

Hotch frowned, confused. "What do you mean?" he asked. He was answered by another flash of lightning, and he watched with deep concern as the crack of thunder that followed sent Spencer dropping to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Morgan did his best to catch him as he fell. "It's okay kid, you're okay, c'mon, we're almost there," he said encouragingly.

"Did you know the kid was afraid of thunder storms?" Rossi murmured to Hotch as they walked the length of the catwalk towards the round-table room.

Hotch shook his head, "No," he said, his face taking on his signature frown of concern.

The team reached the door of their meeting room, and Emily held it open as Morgan helped Reid inside.

On the other side of the room, Garcia was tinkering with the wires on the smartboard. She looked up when she heard them come in. "Can you believe this? It's raining kittens and poodles out there!" she exclaimed. She looked as if she were about to say more, but stopped when she saw Reid. "Reid? What's wrong?" She turned to Derek. "Chocolate Thunder, what did you do to my junior genius?"

Morgan helped Reid into a chair, exhaling with the effort. "Nothing baby girl, he's just afraid of the storm that's all, the thunder spooked him."

Reid cringed internally again, wishing his team would stop treating him like a baby who couldn't understand what they were saying about him.

"I'm f-fine, rea–" Before he had a chance to finish his sentence, two bolts of lightning lit up the sky in quick succession, and Reid was under the table before the thunder even struck.

Everyone stood there for a moment, not sure what to do to help.

Suddenly JJ got on her hands and knees and crawled under the table to sit beside Reid, who was scrunched in a ball, pressing himself tightly into one of the table legs. She reached out and grasped both his shaking shoulders, drawing him into a firm hug.

"Shhh," JJ murmured, "just breathe Spence, you're okay." Gently she ran her fingers through his thick brown locks, and rested her chin on the top of his head. "Henry's afraid of thunder storms too," she said, barely above a whisper. "There's a song I always sing him when he gets scared, do you want to hear it?"

Spencer nodded in spite of himself. He was too far beyond regaining any dignity at this point, and if JJ thought she could make him feel better, there was no reason not to let her try.

JJ shifted positions and crossed her legs. Slowly she coaxed Reid down until his head was resting in her lap, then returned to running her fingers through his hair. She hummed a few soft notes, then began to sing in a voice more beautiful than anyone on her team had ever guessed.

 _"Little child, be not afraid, the rain pounds harsh against the glass_

 _Like an unwanted stranger, there is no danger, I am here tonight._

 _Little child, be not afraid, though thunder explodes and lightning flash,_

 _I_ _lluminate your tear-stained face, I am here tonight._

 _And someday you'll know that nature is so,_

 _This same rain that draws you near me,_

 _Falls on rivers and land, on forests and sand,_

 _Makes the beautiful world that you see_

 _In the morning._

 _Little child, be not afraid, the storm clouds mask your beloved moon,_

 _and it's candle-light beams, still keep pleasant dreams, I am here tonight._

 _Little child, be not afraid, the wind makes creatures of our trees,_

 _and the branches to hands, they're not real understand, and I am here tonight._

 _And someday you'll know that nature is so,_

 _This same rain that draws you near me,_

 _Falls on rivers and land, on forests and sand,_

 _Makes the beautiful world that you see_

 _In the morning._

 _For you know, once even I... was a little child,_

 _and I was afraid, but a gentle someone always came_

 _to dry all my tears, trade sweet sleep for fears,_

 _and to give a kiss goodnight._

 _For now I am grown, and these years have shown, that rain's a part of how life goes,_

 _but it's dark and it's late, so I'll hold you and wait, 'til your frightened eyes do close,_

 _And I hope that you know that nature is so,_

 _This same rain that draws you near me,_

 _Falls on rivers and land, on forests and sand,_

 _Makes the beautiful world that you see_

 _In the morning..."_

A still hush fell over the room as the last notes faded away. Even the storm outside seemed to be listening.

JJ looked down at Spencer and smiled. His breathing had evened out and his eyes were closed. He sighed softly, all traces of his previous anxiety gone.

Garcia crouched down in front of them and her heart melted at the sight. "My poor baby," she whispered, "we can't wake him up after everything he's been through."

"Well we can't very well leave him sleeping under the table," Morgan commented.

JJ looked up at them and smiled again. "It's okay, you guys go ahead, I'll wait here with him a while."

"You sure?" Rossi asked.

"Yeah," JJ said, "Go on, go grab dinner, it sounds like the storm's finally stopped. I'll catch up with you later."

Hotch pulled back the Venetian blinds on the window. "She's right, the rain's stopped," he confirmed.

"Okay JJ, well, just text us when he wakes up, or when your legs fall asleep and you need rescuing," Morgan smirked.

JJ rolled her eyes and chuckled. "You're such a compassionate big brother," she said.

As the others filed quietly out of the room one by one, JJ looked down at Spencer, who looked uncharacteristically relaxed. "You'll be okay Spence," she murmured, "I'm not going anywhere."


	2. Chapter 2

2/6/17

Criminal Minds

Lullaby for a Stormy Night

For nearly half an hour JJ sat under the table, watching Spencer sleep with his head in her lap.

Twenty minutes into her vigil, the office lights flickered back on. The room was bathed in the soft orange glow of the lamps that sat in each corner, but Spencer never stirred.

Not long thereafter, JJ heard a slight rattling of the doorknob, and in filed the rest of her team, very quietly, all holding paper sacks of Mexican food.

"What are you guys doing back?" JJ asked, "I thought you were going out."

Garcia smiled, "We couldn't leave you to look after Junior G-Man all by yourself, we thought you might get hungry, so we brought the party back here."

"How's he doing?" Morgan asked, fishing into one of the bags.

"Still sleeping," JJ replied, "I think the storm wore him out."

As she said that, Reid started to stir. He mumbled something unintelligible as the back of his hand came up to rub his still-closed eyes. Eventually he blinked sleepily and rolled over. He found himself looking up at JJ's smiling face.

"How you feeling Spence?" JJ asked, sweeping a hand over his forehead to brush the hair away.

Reid yawned and sat up, looking around at his team a little sheepishly. "Um, I'm fine." He looked uncomfortably at the ground for a minute before mumbling, "Thanks... you know... for helping me earlier."

"No need to thank us kid," Morgan said as he sat down at the table and unwrapped his taco. "We're a family, and we look out for each other, you know that."

Reid smiled slightly, letting his gaze fall back to the carpet.

"Spencer, you hungry?" Rossi asked, "we got Mexican. We were gonna eat it all ourselves, but Garcia made us come back for you," he smirked playfully.

Reid's smile widened as he made to stand up. He crawled out from under the table and used it as leverage. Once on his feet, he reached out to give JJ a hand up. Before she turned away, Reid gave her hand a slight squeeze. "Thank you," he whispered.

JJ smiled softly at him and returned the squeeze. "You're welcome," she said quietly.

It wasn't long before everyone was seated around the table surrounded by nachos, salsa, and more varieties of taco than any of them had ever seen.

It took less than ten minutes for Rossi to break the comfortable silence in which everyone was sitting. "Spencer, can I ask you something?" he asked.

Reid looked away, but nodded uncomfortably. He knew where this was going.

"Why are you so afraid of thunder storms?"

Reid sighed. It took a moment to find his voice, and when he did, it was soft, almost plaintive. "I never used to be. As a kid I was fascinated with them, I tried repeating Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment more times than I could count. I spent hours trying to find the perfect formula for measuring the exact amount of time between the lightning and thunder, and its correlation with the storm's distance from my location." He paused and ran a slightly agitated hand through his hair. "You remember that case we had five years ago in Kansas? The one where the unsub was trying to use tornadoes to bring his dead brother back to life?"

The rest of the team nodded. They could sense what was coming.

"After that case I kept... I kept having nightmares, for weeks, about howling storms and corpses coming back to life. Over and over again, I'd be stuck in some open field with a tornado screaming right at me and all these zombies closing in from every angle."

Garcia looked like she wanted to cry, and JJ frowned with worry. "That sounds awful," she said.

Reid bit his lip and nodded. "That wasn't the worst part though," he murmured. "Every time I had that dream, the zombies... they had different faces. Faces of the victims I couldn't save. It always ended the same way. Just before they got me, it would start pouring rain, with thunder and lightning everywhere. I'd watch as one by one they were struck with lightning, then swept away by the tornado. Even though they were the bad guys in my dream, every time I woke up, I felt like I'd failed them again." Spencer's eyes stung, and he tried to wipe them surreptitiously with the back of his hand.

Under the table, Emily grabbed his other hand and squeezed gently. Her face wore an expression of sadness and pity.

Morgan sighed and shook his head. "Kid, why did you never tell us about this?"

Spencer bit his lip in an effort to keep it from trembling as he said softly, "If I bothered you guys with every nightmare I had, it's all any of us would ever be dealing with."

Silence engulfed the table as the truth of these words sank in. They all knew that Reid had always had it worst when it came to the nightmares associated with their work, but none of them had appreciated how much worse it was until now.

Reid felt his resolve starting to crumble as two tears slid down his cheeks. He brushed them away brusquely and stood up quickly. "So-I'm sorry," he stammered, "I should – I should go." He kept his head down and made a beeline for the door, but JJ jumped up and blocked his way.

"Spence," she murmured softly. She reached out and took both his forearms gently, pulling him into a hug. "Come here," she whispered.

Reid felt the last of his walls fall as he sank into her arms, burying his face in her shoulder as he started to sob silently.

The rest of the team just looked on, the scene in front of them feeling oddly reminiscent of that day in the hospital when JJ had told them that Emily had died.

As Spencer stood there, engulfed in the arms of his closest confidante, the memory of everyone he'd ever lost began its relentless march across eidetic mind. He cried until he couldn't breathe, until he was choking on his own gasps, suffocated by his own broken heart.

That was when his team really understood. His fear of storms. They reminded him of his nightmares, and his nightmares reminded him of his worst possible failing, the failure to save people who needed him.

It took a long time, but finally Spencer stopped crying. He pulled away from JJ and scrubbed his red eyes with the heels of both palms. He wished he didn't have to be this way, so sensitive to the death that followed his team like a flock of ravens. Turning to look back at his family though, Spencer suddenly smiled. He looked at JJ, who had comforted him when he was afraid, at Derek and Emily, who'd helped him get across the bullpen when he didn't have the strength to make it himself, at Garcia, who'd made the team come back for him and JJ, at Rossi, who was brave enough to ask the difficult questions that no one else wanted to broach, at Hotch, who, while often silent, watched over his team with the same parental protectiveness he used to raise his son.

Spencer knew in that moment that it didn't matter how strong he was, how capable he was of taking care of himself, of being brave and unafraid. He didn't have to be any of those things, because he was surrounded by a family who could be them for him.


End file.
